The NSA warrantless wiretapping program, PRISM, continues to outrage millions of Americans — but let’s not forget some other recent scandals emerging from our “public servants” in Washington, including serious allegations from the chairman of the House Homeland Security oversight subcommittee that IRS agents are now arming themselves with AR-15 “semi-automatic weapons.” Rep. Duncan claims to have seen this with his own eyes last month.

What is going on in this country? It is one thing to provide your nation’s tax agency with the legal tools necessary to collect debts owed, and another thing altogether to enforce those powers with the precise kinds of assault weapons some members of Congress had wanted to ban earlier this year.

It also recently came out that the IRS spent more than $50 million on conferences between 2010 and 2012. The frugality of these conferences has been called into question. See my take on this above.

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This type of thing is can be expected in a police state. Where’s the surprise here?

VaudeVillain

It can also be expected in a state which has police. American civil law enforcement has been using military grade equipment for a little over 200 years… which is to say, ever since we became a nation. In fact, the gap between military and police weaponry is greater now than at any other time in American history: until fairly recently, there wasn’t even much of a difference.

I guess for me the surprise is that self-proclaimed civil libertarians are apparently unaware that the police have access to civilian models of old military hardware (the AR-15 is essentially a modified M-16, which has been standard issue since the 60s), and that they somehow view this as a particularly egregious affront to their liberties. Frankly, the use of UAVs, electronic surveillance and creative use of warrants pose much more of a threat and represent much more of a step toward revoking our freedoms.

If this is a police state, and I’m not saying it isn’t, the problem isn’t what guns they are carrying around, the problem is what laws they enforce and how they go about doing so.

Law enforcement has been using the AR-15 for decades now. Watch footage of ATF agents at work some time… those ain’t Super Soakers.

This indicates that the IRS now sees the threat of violence against some of their agents as credible enough to expend their finite resources (manpower and time, in particular) to train and outfit them in this way. Apparently, they believe that tax avoiders are becoming more and more comparable in terms of the force they will use against law enforcement.

It’s interesting to know, certainly, but hardly shocking. If anything, this shows just how far the IRS has lagged behind their peers in terms of police militarization, just getting to a party that most are nearly ready to leave.

Matt Staggs

Suddenly imagining the intro training session like the speech from Brad Pitt in the beginning of Inglourious Basterds: “…and I want my (tax payers’) scalps.”

CosmicAmazing

I’m not surprised, but I think the reason this is news is because the IRS is really NOT a government agency or a law enforcement agency. They are a private corporation, incorporated in Delaware in 1933, operating under international treaty. They act as the agent of a foreign principal (The Federal Reserve) under the terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938. The Fed, as most of you know, is a private corporation.

Then there’s this: (D.O.A. 27100-70) – The IRS as a paramilitary organization may not impose military authority into civil affairs.